Engineering the Environment of a Catalytic Metal–Organic Framework by Postsynthetic Hydrophobization

Repel without a pause: A new metal–organic framework (MOF), the substituted imidazolate material SIM-1, is easily converted into the very hydrophobic SIM-2(C12) by post-synthetic modification with long alkyl chains. The new water-repellent MOF shows the highest catalytic activity ever found for a MOF in the Knoevenagel condensation.